


The Ancient and Fraternal Order of Mystery Archetypes

by Jenett



Category: PBS Mystery! Opening Credits - Edward Gorey
Genre: Archetypes, Gen, Mystery Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenett/pseuds/Jenett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you read a lot of mysteries, you might think you know how this story goes. But do you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ancient and Fraternal Order of Mystery Archetypes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lorelei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelei/gifts).



"Give the password." 

"Mystery, murder, and malefaction." 

"Enter, and be seated." 

They came in, by ones and twos, settling in comfortable chairs around the library. They carry pipes and knitting needles, glasses of sherry or of whiskey, books and newspapers. There is a dog here, a cat over there. Decorative canes, sharp lapels, a few stunning hats, the occasional monocle, a fan, more than one veil. 

They murmur, the expected queries about children, nephews, nieces, how the author's most recent book is doing. There's a buzz of gossip about a jewelry heist, a scandalous marriage, a heroic flight across snowy mountains, a train ride, manuscript forgeries. The usual. 

"The Ancient and Fraternal Order of Mystery Archetypes is duly called to order. Make the room sealed." It is an old man speaking, enthroned on a chair in front of curtains. 

The Knitting Old Lady, a complicated lace shawl in her lap, leans over to another woman and says "It's not ancient. Only 1887. That's younger than I am." Her companion hushes her while one or two others turn and raise an eyebrow of disapprobation. 

A burly man with immense shoulders, like every bodyguard for a villain you've read about, pulls the door to the library shut and turns the key. "The room is sealed." 

There is the business of the meeting. Even archetypes have business, after all. There are the trifling matters of dues and newsletter editors, of mutual support agreements. A need to renegotiate item 32J in the order's contract of expected behaviour, since someone has raised a point of order, whether radiation poisoning should be treated like other poisons, or should be considered a new class of threat. (A problem of the modern age, not forseen in the original charter.)

The perennial petition for classification of macguffins by type and complexity by a bespectacled librarian. Half the assembled archetypes doze off for a short nap while he talks about controlled vocabulary and taxonomy. Again. 

He is encouraged to yield the floor after a few minutes, the other business is attended to, more rows are knit on the needles, and there is the pause to refill drinks and stretch legs, before everyone settles again, for the Telling. 

Being an archetype is hard work. It is confining work, to live one's life within the bounds of what is expected for one's type, one's place, one's role. Detectives do this, sergeants are like that. Little old ladies who solve mysteries must not be seen to care about the fashions of the year, charming aristocrats may not express their passion for the plebian pursuits of amusement parks. Glamorous women of the world must not be seen at home in comfortable grubby clothes, reading a favourite children's novel. And let's not get into the expectations of villains.

And so, each year, there is the Telling. One story never written down, anywhere, so their secrets are kept. One place where they are free to do something new, something different, something strange and wild and full of power. 

This time, it is the turn of the Mysterious Young Widow, the second time she's been here. She rises from her seat, graceful, letting the moment gather weight before she reaches and lifts her veil, draping it over her broadbrimmed hat to fall backwards. Then she is reaches for the glass of red wine, makes a small silent toast, and takes a long slow drink.

Setting the glass on the table, she says "Ladies, gentlemen, protagonists, antagonists, archetypes all, tonight I will share with you the Tale of the Dropped Shawl." 

She sets the scene, describing the massive country house, lingering on the little details that make the house unusual, the small touches that hint at what is to come. A house party, mingling intimates and strangers, known and unknown. 

There are the members of the family. None quite members here, they have one too many quirks for that, but decidedly of the known types. Country squire and much younger second wife. Eldest daughter, a year or two her stepmother's junior andher suitably dull husband, younger daughter with three seperate men (one appropriate, two less so in their own ways) courting her. A widowed aunt, no one ever asks about her three dead husbands. 

There is the cast below stairs, a proper butler, a strict housekeeper, maids and footmen all in their places. A chauffeur for the family, a new addition. Gardeners, to keep the vast and desolate grounds immaculately, folly and ha-ha, pergola and ponds. And the maze. It would be a mistake to forget about the maze. They never do. 

There are the guests at the party, suspicious and uncertain of each other. Some wear furs that hide shabby dresses beneath, others have paste gems that shine wrong in the light. There are murmurs in dark hallways, arrangements to meet, trade secrets, plan assignations. Rumours that one of the guest is a journalist or perhaps a novelist. That this man is a longlost prince, and that woman a spy. 

The Mysterious Young Widow pauses here, takes another sip of wine, before she says, "In hindsight, the croquet match in the storm was a bad idea." 

The first evening went as one would expect. Dinner progressed to drinks to the obligatory playing of the piano and of bridge. One by one, people made their their excuses and escaped the stilted public rooms for more private amusements. 

The next day, the guests are increasingly fractious as morning turns into afternoon, tempers flaring into little sharp pricking comments. The braying laugh at the wrong time from this man, the teeth-rattling giggle from that woman, the snippy "My dear, that dress makes you look entirely too has-been.", the little sharp reminders of class and status and lack thereof. 

And so half a dozen of them flee out into the storm, in cloaks and hats pinned viciously in place, and they ignore how their shoes sink in the mud and how the ball gets bogged down. It is too windy to talk, too stormy to do anything but focus single-minded on the game. 

They retreat, finally, to cold baths and warmer fire places, and none of them notices how oddly quiet the house has gone. Like it's waiting. Anticipating. 

The Mysterious Young Widow adds, "I blame myself, really. I knew better." She takes another long drink from her wine glass, holds it out to be refilled, and then continues. 

The dinner is uneven, quite literally - three of their party have claimed to feel unwell, leaving the table all wrong. It is not the done thing. It makes conversation impossible, breaks all the patterns. 

They carry on. It is what one does. 

They carry on through the awkward obligatory dancing, through the tirelessly repetitive social pleasantries to people they are growing to dislike, through the mandatory drunken conversations that overwhelm any slight pleasure most of them might have found. 

It is almost a relief when there is a scream from the library. A body, dead. A book fallen on the floor. An open French door to the terrace. Someone glimpsed a shadowy shape. A dog barked. 

Soon, they are swarmed by detectives. An inspector, here. Three private investigators, all identical, and bearing the improbable names of Mr Leigh, Mr Leah, and Mr Lee. Sergeants at the doors, and the cook making platters of sandwiches. 

It is some hours before the inspector puts his head in his hands, and begins to list exactly what has gone wrong in the house. Seven deaths, a kidnapping, and the theft of a priceless puzzlebox. So far. 

One suitor poisoned, another shot, leaving the least suitable of the three. The rumoured prince stabbed, the squire found drowned, a sharp eyed grand dame found slumped in her chair, blunt force to the head. The second wife strangled, pearls spilling and rolling across the floor. And the sensible husband of the elder daughter, crushed under a falling cornice. 

(The inspector thinks that last is misfortune, not murder, but the Mysterious Young Widow's tone makes her opinion of that quite clear.) 

The inspector questions each person, crosses suspect after suspect off each list, makes a list of when each death occurred, who was where. They search the grounds, more than once, to find the younger daughter, find her scarf, rescue her from the roof. 

The Mysterious Young Widow pauses here and says, carefully "You are all clever enough to see what the inspector did not, of course." 

As is tradition, the society's staff pass round slips of paper and pencils, for each archetype to write their choice of the murderer on. There is the brief sound of scribbling, the papers are collected, and the Mysterious Young Widow moves to the table to sort them, before she turns to smile. 

"It was my - the younger daughter. No one wondered - no one except me - how she could drop her shawl and yet be unable to free herself. Her ankles showed signs of being tied, and not her wrists." 

She shrugs, a delicate and tired shrug. "The inspector did not believe me, of course. It was outside my role to solve his crime, he could not see what was right before him. But others were persuasive in time." Here she nods at two older men in the corner. "They also recovered the puzzlebox, naturally, and the deeds within it." 

There is the little murmur, of a story well-told, of the satisfaction of justice in the end, the pleasure of a complex puzzle, as they discuss the minor details of the plots and ask their questions, and then fracture into a dozen conversational groups to pick contentedly over the bones. 

And the Eldest Daughter lets out a long breath, and is glad to have found the people who believe her. 

**Author's Note:**

> A treat for Lorelei, who wrote a delightful prompt saying: 
> 
> "I like Gorey’s humor, wit, and eccentricity. I also like the period details and the manor house feel to the settings. I asked for, and received, lovely, hilarious, witty Gashlycrumb Tinies fic in 2012 and have been wondering what someone could do with the Mystery Intro." 
> 
> I grew up on them too, and this was really fun to write and play with the archetypal roles. (Much thanks to my usual beta, name to appear after reveals, for reassuring me that it hung together sufficiently.) 
> 
> You can watch the two intros I used for this story at [version one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ge-Yr5vkYU) and [version two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAmGsM4Dids). And you can read [about the design of the intro](http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/lambgorey.php3) in an interesting article about Derek Lamb, who did the animation.


End file.
